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Friday, January 27, 2012

How are we related?

How I found out that my parents were related before they were married.

The relationship between the person you have selected on your screen, will show the relationship between that person and the "Home" person. But, sometimes you may want to look at other relationships.

Family Tree Maker has a Relationship Calculator feature.

In my research, I found that my parents were related to each other before they were married. Here is how you can determine these relationships.

Go to the People Workspace, Person View, and click on the Tools menu. Select the Relationship Calculator.

This will bring up a screen, that will allow you to select the two people that you want to see how they are related.

In this case my father and mother. The First ICON to the Right if the Name, will bring up the Index, where you can select the names.. At first glance, is shows Husband and Wife. BUT, on the Relationship line, there is a Number 2. This indicates that there is another Relationship between these two people.

The pull down menu indicates that they are 5th cousins 2 times removed. By selecting that 2nd relationship the Right Hand Panel will show the relationships.

That's difficult to see the relationship, so click on the View Relationship Chart.

This is only a part of the full chat, but this view will show back to the Common Ancestor.

One other thing to do, is to Switch these two people in that earlier screen. There may be other, more distant relationships.

In this view, my parents are related 5 times.

Lesson Learned: I am asked many times, should I split may file, based on mother and father, or grandparents, etc. This is an example of the benefit of maintaining one file. You may miss this fun information.
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Where to get Help

A Blog is not a very helpful place to troubleshoot a problem with Family Tree Maker. There is plenty of help, in the Help Menu of the program that is specific to where you are in the program; In the Help Menu, there is a link to the Knowledge Base website, called Online Help Center.